Companies in the aerospace, automotive and shipbuilding industries use commercial CAD/CAM software for multiple stages of product development, including conceptualization, design, manufacturing, and engineering. Thousands of end users across an enterprise system may contribute to the development of a product.
A commercial vendor may provide CAD/CAM software as a base package. A base configuration of the software is installed on each end user's computer by installing the base package.
New functionality may thereafter be added to the base configuration by installing extended packages. Typically, each extended package contains all files of the previous package plus additional files. The base configuration may be upgraded by installing a first extended package. Later, the upgraded configuration may be further upgraded by installing a second extended package, and so on.
Each extended package replaces all previous files. Reconfiguration and verification can take time. Errors can occur. An earlier configuration that was functioning properly might no longer function properly. In an enterprise system having thousands of end users, reconfiguration and verification can be costly.
A better approach is desirable.